The November 3rd ClubVictor D. Infante, the Editor-in-Chief of The November 3rd Club (and mad ferret-fancier), and I have hung out on some of the same online venues for over 5 years, off and on. When I was planning this issue, I realized that his passion for political activism makes The November 3rd Club, tagged “Literary Values In a Political Age”, the perfect spotlight. MD: Tell us a little about The November 3rd Club. How long has it been around; how often does it come out; how many stories are in it on average; is there poetry in every issue? What kinds of essays do you include? In particular, what’s special about it? VDI:The November 3rd Club, in its first incarnation, began on November 3rd, 2004 – the day after George W. Bush was re-elected president. I was somewhat hung over and in an apoplectic rage, feeling absolutely powerless to prevent the country from diving head first into oblivion. Then I realized that there had to be other writers who were feeling the way I did, many of whom I knew. So I started a private mailing list for professional writers of all stripes to discuss politics, literature and where the two intersect. That list was the original November 3rd Club, and it still exists. My hope–both at the time and now–was that putting disparate writers together like that, we’d be able to generate some good ideas on how literature can actually affect the world. One of those ideas, however, was to start a Web journal, which is something I was initially cool toward. After all, I could already see who’d be editing it, and I didn’t know if I’d have the time. Still, I was eventually won over by the idea, and we launched the first issue in September of 2005. By this point, the goal had changed. I was less interested in putting forward a traditional literary journal as I was broadening the conversation between writers. thus, I see Nov3rd as a map, in a lot of ways: a guide to the pain and hurt that fracture the country, because the country is fractured and wounded, and I wanted to see those breaks clearly. And what else is politics but the act of balancing the pain and need of every group that’s forced to live with one another? MD: Nov3rd is unusual, I think, in having a relatively large group of people working together on it. Why did you structure it the way you did? What does this disparate group of people bring to the table? VDI:I’m not sure we’re so terribly unusual in that, but the original idea was that, if we’re going to do it, we were going to do it big. The Internet is about 99.99% signal to .01% noise, and I wasn’t interested in wasting my time. I wanted people to pay attention. So I began assembling a team that could both deal with each particular discipline – poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction – as well as keep their eyes toward the literary. It’s very easy to get lost in politics. I wanted to transcend that. I wanted to show people how political literature should be done. I’ll leave it to other people to decide whether we’re accomplishing that goal, tough. But, to answer the original question, I was very clear that I couldn’t do this alone. It was too big, and frankly, I didn’t want my perspective to dominate the discussion. So that was a factor in choosing the staff. It wasn’t hard to find people. Nonfiction editor Carlye Archibeque and I have worked together at various publications, including Next … Magazine and The Independent Review Site. We’ve been each other’s immediate editor, and we know how each other work, so she was a gimmee. She brought along Richard Modiano, whom I knew but hadn’t really worked with before. He may well be the smartest man I know, and I know a lot of people. The choices for poetry editors were also obvious: Richard Beban is very much a literary, MFA-wielding poet, and Ray McNiece is a hard-scrabble, hard-touring working poet with roots in slam. They were a natural team, a poetic Buddy Flick, if you will. They’re very much equals, and very much opposites, and they bring a lot of frission to the poetry section, instead of consensus, which bores me. I wanted poems that some people would hate and others would fall in love with. They do that, with aplomb. Lenore Weiss was someone whom I had never met, but we published one of her poems early on. When our original fiction editor, Michelle Ben-Hur, wasn’t able to continue and Lenore expressed interest, I knew she’d work out well. She’s got an amazing eye for taking a good story and making it great. Seriously, these people do all the work. They’re amazing, and I don’t think I could do this without them. MDNov3rd seems to me to be looking at the political climate of the US and the world from a US perspective. Do you publish authors from other countries? What will readers from other countries get from it? VDI:It’s funny, when we started, I asked myself if I was going to restrict publication to American authors, and that got blown out the window right away: In the first issue, we published Todd Swift, a Canadian writer living in England; Gabriel Rosenstock, a brilliant Irish poet and translator, and Mark Ames, an expatriate American journalist who was a founding editor of the raucous Moscow-based “The eXile” newspaper. That crystallized things for me: There’s no such thing as a strictly American issue. Everything America does effects the world, and vice versa. There was no way we could present a complete portrait and restrict ourselves to only American voices. Which is lucky, because we would have lost out on some amazing work, including Dennis Brutus, a poet who helped to end Apartheid in South Africa, and France’s Camille de Toledo, whose book Coming of Age at the End of History may well be my favorite book of contemporary philosophy. The only way America – or anywhere, really – can change the things that’s wrong with it is to begin shaking off the shackles of perspective. That’s always our goal, and bringing international voices into the mix is a great way to do that. MD: What are you looking for in a piece you publish? What makes it special? Do you use reprints? Do you have a particularly favorite piece up right now? VDI:We bore easy. We want someone to show us something new. Yeah, I know every journal says that, but when you’re dealing with political literature, it’s an absolute imperative. It’s so very, very easy to rant. It’s harder to find the humanity in an issue, to make it real. To make it break your jaded, media-whipped heart. And I very, very much want to break your heart. That’s how I’ll know when you’re finally paying attention. We do take reprints, but increasingly we’re only taking them by invitation: We get too many submissions to give reprinted material much priority. On the other hand, we’ve been fortunate in that a number of major poets, such as Rita Dove and Alicia Ostriker, have been kind enough to let us reprint things from their books. Some writing, such as theirs, is just so vital that it needs to be made available free to anyone in reach of a computer. And yeah, I have my favorites. I fought like hell to get Lea Assenmacher’s poem “First, Dakotah,” when I heard her read it in New Hampshire, because I wanted to be the first person to show that one to the world. I also begged Richard Nash, publisher of Soft Skull Press and one of our biggest supporters, to let me publish Daphne Gottlieb’s beautiful “Kiss Someone When You Hear Of The Woman With The Gun And You Will Make Magic” before her book Kissing Dead Girls came out. I am definitely not too proud to beg if I want a piece enough. I also love the poems by Antoinette Brim and Jamie O’Halloran a lot. MD: How do you choose the art in each issue? Where do you find it? VDI:I have been blessed to have the acquaintance of many fabulous artists. Otherwise, dealing with art gives me a headache. See, artists – for the most part – expect to be paid. And we can’t do that. So I live on artistic charity. Many, many fine artists have taken pity on me. I think they like to see me beg. My other secret weapon is my wife, Lea Deschenes, who builds the site from scratch every issue. She’s responsible for the clean layout and sharp navigation. She’s also my safety if the art ever goes terribly wrong. In a pinch, she’s capable of whipping something up. Because she’s amazing. MD: How do you support Nov3rd? VDI:Like I said, it’s all volunteer. No one gets paid for anything, and even our server space is donated by a brilliant but anonymous poet in Boston. A lot of that is political, and a lot of that is simple necessity. I don’t want ads on the site, and I don’t want money to complicate things. Which of course, makes things hard when you’re dealing with writers who routinely get paid to write out their grocery list, but so far I’ve found the support from established writers has mitigated those concerns, and indeed, it gets easier every issue. MD: How do you define success for Nov3rd? Is it reaching that goal? What is its future? VDI:There is no success. You have to understand, you don’t win these sorts of battles. But you fight them anyway, because you have to. I’d like to think that the world’s going to become magically healed when Barack Obama descends upon the White House in a explosion of rainbow lights in November, but I’m smarter than that. In fact, we’re in the process right now of retooling the sight to take the fight for America’s soul – and that’s always been the fight – deeper. Because if John McCain wins, then we’re at status quo, but if Obama takes it … that’s a start. A smaller start than most people think, but a start nonetheless. That gives us enough room to begin chipping away at the carapace of evil that’s encased the country these past eight years. A big part of the change at the site is going to be the columnists. Originally, we started with a left-wing columnist, Elizabeth Ross, and a right-wing columnist, Marc Solomon. But Liz is a Pennsylvania Republican, and – at the time at least – was only liberal on social issues. And Marc is a Libertarian. Eventually, their evolving perspectives, with Liz moving more left and Marc moving even more antiestablismentarian, meant that it was prudent for us to strip them of the “wing” designations, to let them loose unfettered. In addition, starting with the next issue, we’ll be adding regular columns by slam poetry icon Phil West and socialist revolutionary Pham Binh. They’re both powerhouse writers, and I think they’ll add a lot to the mix. MD: You’re involved in a lot of stuff, both online and off. What are your passions? Where can people track you down? What are you involved in that you want people to know about? What do you read when you’re not putting together an issue of Nov3rd? What music do you listen to? What informs your point of view? VDI:I’m a pretty easy to find guy, actually. My main portal to the outside world is my Web site, VictorInfante.com, which has a link to my blog and various other things I get up to. I’m also keep accounts on Facebook and MySpace, because I’m endlessly fascinated with those sorts of things. Poetry, obviously, is my main passion. It was my first love, and it’s still the one thing at my center. I have a book just out on Write Bloody Publishing, called City of Insomnia, and it’s eating even more of my attention than Nov3rd. I didn’t even think that was possible. Otherwise, I’m a voracious reader of other people’s poetry, and of fiction and comic books. I’ve recently fallen in love with Martin Millar’s novels – the ones available in the U.S., anyway – and read anything by Michael Chabon, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett. I’m also an avid music fan, and would probably have done that instead if I could play an instrument or carry a tune. But I fail at both. My sensibilities skew toward old-school punk and older-school country, with a lot of contemporary folk thrown in, but I find myself falling easily in love with all sorts of things. Currently listening to a lot of Cold War Kids, Dresden Dolls and VHS or Beta, and a fair amount of hip-hop. Recently, my wife came into a large number of old records which have been burned to MP3 – we’re talking Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and the like. It’s all awesome. I also have a large number of TV fixations, most notably of late Doctor Who. MD: You’re a very busy man; a reporter, a poet, podcaster, and a ‘zine editor–what made you decide to do this? VDI:This is who I am. Whether I’m at my newspaper day job, or writing poetry or doing Nov3rd, it’s all an extension of the same thing: I write, and I work with other people’s writing. I don’t see any of it as separate from the rest. MD: Why ferrets? VDI:To steal a joke from wife, I need a pet with my attention span. MD: If someone’s already read everything in your archive, what online venue would you recommend they visit next and why? VDI:I’m really excited by some of the English-language stuff coming out of Europe right now, particularly things like NthPosition, which has the aforementioned Todd Swift as a poetry editor, and the fiction on 3 A.M. Magazine, edited by Andrew Gallix of France. I really see those two sites as being way ahead of the curve, in a lot of ways, particularly in those two respective fields. |
Lone Star StoriesLone Star Stories has published some of my favorite authors, so when I had the opportunity, I sat down with Eric Marin and we chatted over a cup of coffee about his work on Lone Star Stories and the anthology he has coming out from it soon, as well as what makes him do the thing he does. [This being the Internet, that actually translates to: working to deadline, I suddenly recalled I had asked Eric for an interview, so I sent him an email the day before it was due with my questions, which he very kindly answered and turned around in fewer than 24 hours. We have never actually spoken.] He’s a really nice guy. MD: Tell us a little about Lone Star Stories. How long has it been around; how often does it come out; how many stories are in it on average; is there poetry in every issue? In particular, what’s special about it? Eric Marin:I started Lone Star Stories in late 2003 as a bimonthly webzine of speculative fiction. The first issue went live on February 1, 2004 with four stories, and I soon began publishing speculative poetry as well. (I was writing and reading speculative fiction and poetry and wanted the webzine to reflect my interest in both.) By the end of the first year of publication, I had settled into a more or less constant pattern of three stories and three poems per issue. MD: You should probably clear up the Lone Star part as well. It’s not just westerns, or about Texans or Texas writers, right? What made you choose the name? How often have you had to explain it? EM: Lone Star Stories began as a niche market of speculative work with a “Texas twist”—works about, set in, by, or connected to Texas. I live in Texas, so the Texas nexus made sense for me personally and served as an initial differentiating factor. I discovered, though, after the first several issues, that finding enough Texas-related work to meet a bimonthly schedule was just too difficult. So, I broadened the theme to include all speculative fiction and poetry. Surprisingly, I haven’t had to explain the name often at all. MD: What makes you choose a piece for LSS? What makes it special? Is there a particular type of story or piece of poetry you’re looking for? Do you use reprints? EM: I look for well-written stories and poems incorporating or referencing elements of the fantastic, futuristic, mythic, etc. that engage me right from the start and keep me engaged to the end. That works for me and appears to draw readers and keep them coming back to the site as new work is published. I do accept reprints, although I’m much more likely to reprint a poem than a story. MD: What’s the future of LSS? You have an anthology coming out. When will it be out? Who’s in it? Do you have a favorite story in it? What else are you up to? EM: I plan on continuing to publish Lone Star Stories through my small press, LSS Press, as a venue for speculative fiction and poetry for many years to come. I have just begun to publish print works. The anthology that you so ably designed the interior layout for [Note: I designed the anthology book block, which is how I met Eric. DF], The Lone Star Stories Reader, is the first such print work. It is comprised of fifteen stories selected from the first twenty-five issues of Lone Star Stories to give readers unfamiliar with Lone Star Stories an idea of what they can expect to see in any given online issue. The authors are (in order of appearance) Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Gavin J. Grant, M. Thomas, Marguerite Reed, Ekaterina Sedia, Sarah Monette, Catherynne M. Valente, Tim Pratt, Sarah Prineas, Samantha Henderson, Stephanie Burgis, Josh Rountree, Jay Lake, and Patricia Russo. Sherwood Smith was kind enough to write an introduction to the anthology as well. I plan to release the book in November of this year. Oh, and I like all of the stories equally, of course! MD: What else should we be looking for from LSS Press? EM: If The Lone Star Stories Reader does well enough, I would like to publish additional anthologies of collected fiction (and poetry) from Lone Star Stories, as well as anthologies of original fiction and poetry. I might even publish novellas or novels someday. MD: How do you choose the art in each issue? Where do you find it? EM: I look online (often on Wikipedia) for images in the public domain or that are available through a GNU license or Creative Commons license that mesh thematically with the stories and poems in an issue. MD: How do you support LSS? I didn’t see a single “donate” button anywhere on the site. EM: I pay for Lone Star Stories out of my own pocket, which is something I can afford to do because of my full time law practice. It helps that I keep costs low, but that translates into lower-than-I-would-prefer pay rates for fiction and poetry. I am working to build the reputation of Lone Star Stories over time with the hope that I will find a way to leverage the growing readership of Lone Star Stories into a sustainable funding source to pay authors and poets more for their work. MD: So, let’s talk about Eric. What do you read when you’re not putting together an issue of LSS? What music do you listen to? EM: I read a lot of legal works during the day, but when I have time to read for pleasure, I enjoy speculative fiction and poetry, short and long, as well as more mainstream works. For music, I like alternative rock, new and old. Some of my current favorites are Metric, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Arcade Fire, and Muse. MD: There’s always a lot of talk about where speculative fiction is going. Are more people reading it or fewer? Are the small presses being squeezed or gobbling up more than their share of the pie? You’ve been around a relatively long time (I think Internet years are very similar to dog years in the life of an online venture). What’s changed in speculative fiction–on and offline–since you started LSS? Where do you see it going? What would you like to see? EM: Honestly, I don’t know if more people are reading speculative fiction or not. One bonus of the internet publication of speculative work is that readers from the around the world now have access to speculative publications they never would have seen otherwise, so that in itself probably increases readership. I think the small presses are filling niches that larger publishers are leaving alone because the niches would not satisfy the larger publishers on an economic basis for any length of time. That’s great for small press publishers, writers, and readers, as it encourages literary experimentation and general diversity in the field. As far as change and the future of speculative fiction go, I’m really not sure. Those are excellent subjects for academic essays, which I’d certainly enjoy reading. That said, I do think that the quality of writing for speculative fiction, in general, has improved and continues to improve. (There’s always been extraordinarily well written speculative fiction, of course, but there seems to be more emphasis on it now than in the past.) I’d, therefore, like to see speculative fiction (and poetry) continue to expand the minds of its readers in engaging and well written ways. MD: If someone’s already read everything in your archive, what online venue would you recommend they visit next and why? EM: If readers are looking for freely available works that are less traditional and more literary while still remaining largely speculative, Strange Horizons (for fiction and poetry) is an excellent choice. (There are many other cool online venues to explore, some of which are listed on the Lone Star Stories Links page.) Of InterestI’ve been toiling tirelessly to find our readers more sites that might be of interest (okay, I asked people). These are some sites that have been recommended: Writes Rudy Ch. Garcia: Since 2004, each week we’ve regularly reviewed books, both fiction and nonfiction, in all genres–including poetry and children’s books–cultural events (currently, La Semana Negra in Spain) and included reporting on a variety of related subjects concerning the Chicano, Latino in U.S. society, while also occasionally branching out into mainstream culture and topics. The contributors are crime fiction, children’s, poetry, spec fiction, mainstream, Latino novelists and writers who post something new nearly every day of the week. The site has been nominated for awards and was recognized as “Best Blog” in 2006 by L.A.’s Tu Ciudad magazine. We also maintain possibly the most complete and updated list of Chicano author website on the Internet and receive about 11k hits a month. The inagural issue, sent out in PDF in June, includes stories and articles by C. L. Rossman, Henry P. Gravelle, D. L. Russell, R. Scott McCoy, and Natalie L. Sin. Editor D. L. Russell writes: “After you’re finished feel free to pass the pdf. in its entirety onto your friends.” So if you want a copy drop a comment and I’ll be glad to send it along. Other sites of interest: Thinking About Race and MediaThink Girl Other ‘Zines Welcoming DiversityDog Vs. Sandwich |
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